by Anease Lacaze

Created on: October 15, 2008

In High School, I had a series of fantastic English teachers. I realize how I lucky I was to be graced with such inspiring and knowledgeable teachers. I was not aware of my love for writing in High School, although I took several writing classes. Ironically, I hated my Writing classes; I felt out of my league for the first time in my life. I was not confident in my work, nor was I comfortable with the criticism necessary to improve my skills. When it came time to pick a major, English was the only to choose; I hate Math, and I am terrible at memorizing the facts of History and Science. I was not sure of my choice, but I was hurled into a universe of vocabulary, research papers and punctuation. I was not very happy. Something happened to me in college though; I suddenly found my voice, and I felt like I had something to say for the first time. I took a Creative Writing class with a phenomenal professor. He awakened me to an area of writing that had been fairly foreign to me thus far. I found solace in poetry. My professor's profound lessons taught me to be concrete and descriptive, while maintaining a strong voice. He was my mentor, whether he knows it or not.

I love to write, and I am lucky enough to be able to write for a living, even if only part-time. I never knew if I had made the right decision though. I did not remember a moment where I knew I was meant to be a writer. But one day, I was taking home a crate of things from my childhood bedroom. My parents were tired of me living out of their house when I had my own. I gathered the last of my belongings into an old milk crate, and took them home to investigate. I love to meander through my childhood via old class work and pictures. In my crate of junk was a children's bible I received as a gift when I was three or four. My Grandmommy and Granddad gave it to me a few years before they passed away. Initially, I set the bible to the side, but something made me turn to the title page. There, I read an inscription that I did not even remember existed. It was from my Grandmommy, and it nearly brought me to tears just to see her handwriting on the paper. Beneath her inscription though, I had written one of my own. It seems that after they died, I dedicated the bible to them. As I read through my young thoughts, I smiled. Then I noticed a scribble through my writing. It appeared that after I had written about my grandparents in my bible, I went back later and edited my work. I had corrected my subject-verb agreement and a small spelling error. I laughed out loud as an overwhelming calm came over me.

I am a writer, and I love being able to communicate with words. Writing is truly a gift. There is something quite satisfying about finding your niche; I just did not know until now, I had already found mine.

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